If Only
by Bossy Mossy
Summary: Jintan believed that he had suffered the most pain of all, having not been able to say goodbye to her the next day. If only he knew. Oneshot, angst.


AnoHana is my favorite anime of all time. I hope I did it justice. Also, Poppo's transition from "Jintan" to "Jinta" is not a typo.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Jintan. You like Menma, don't you?"<p>

It started as a simple question; Anaru's hands were drawn into fists, her skirt wrinkling under her grasp, her cheeks hot below her large glasses.

"What are you talking about?"

He had stammered - of course he would. Of course he liked Menma. It was a childish crush, a childhood love, something that he would have grown out of eventually if everything had stayed how it was.

"Be honest about it. There aren't any secrets among the Super Peace Busters." Yukiatsu said, his voice strong. Even as he grew up, it stayed this way; overpowering, knowledgeable.

"Y-Yukiatsu!"

"Say it, say it! Say it!" Poppo chanted, finally breaking his gaze from the Gameboy in his grasp.

"Just let it go already." Tsuruko.

"Who -" Jintan's gaze manuvered between the boys and Anaru, torn between telling the truth and being laughed at or lying like kids do. The blush on his face seemed to rival the prominent red hue of Poppo's cheeks, and he stuttered. "Who'd like an ugly girl like -" He stopped. His olive-toned eyes slid over to Menma, realizing the extent of his words. He did what most children do: speaking before they realized the extent of their words.

For a moment, Jintan believed the girl was going to cry. Her blue orbs swam and her face seemed to fall, but not for long; suddenly her eyes shut in an attempt to keep the tears from falling, and she smiled, fake and plastered, only for show.

The light that came from the broken rafters bounced off of the pale-hued girl like she was snow, the tears that had shed glittering.

He ran. Jintan ran out of the secret base, away from the crying girl and her calls to him, ignoring her and everything else, not stopping until he was on the street he lived on.

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><p>If only he had known that, while he had ran all the way home, that Menma had ran after him, yelling his name. The secret base was surrounded by trees and forestry, a steep incline on one side. More than once the youngsters had slipped and nearly fallen down the incline, especially as it began to darken outside. It was just something they had become used to and unafraid of as they visited their base more and more.<p>

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><p>Time seemed to have stopped in the secret base. Anaru stared down at her skirt and her white knuckles, wondering what she had done, and Poppo had returned to his game.<p>

"...Do... you guys think he's okay?" Poppo's voice rang out, soft and hesitant. He'd put down his game player, the screen dark, before jumping off of the loft area and onto the main floor. "I don't hear Menma anymore."

"He's fine," Yukiatsu murmured. "Menma's probably found a place to cry. You know how she is."

"A big baby," Tsuruko added, her voice just as soft, a hand drifting up to tug on her small pony tail. Poppo frowned at the three of them.

"I dun' care what you all think, I'mma gonna go check on them," He said, his voice carrying, proud, but holding a bit of hesitation. Without another thought, he took off to the path that lead down the steep hill.

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><p>She'd tripped. It was something that Menma did more than once a day; she hadn't grown into her sandals yet and she was always misjudging the distance between things, something her parents worried would mean she needed glasses. When the small girl was barefoot, she was fine, but she had yet to grow accustomed to the shoes she'd just gotten for the upcoming school year.<p>

Her foot had caught on a root to one of the large trees, and with a whimper she realized her dress had gotten mud and dirt onto it. She stood and wiped her eyes, making her way down the rest of the hill, her movements slow and deliberate.

"Mama's gonna be mad if this stains," she sniffled to herself, deciding to go down to the stream and try to get the mud out of her dress. As she neared the base of the hill, she felt her foot catch again - this time on a loose rock on the embankment - and she fell, sticking her hands out in front of her to catch herself. The palms of her hands slipped on the wet rocks at the bottom of the stream - she felt her sandal on the foot that had tripped herself fall off, her knee crashing onto the rocky embankment and scraping - and instantaneously her head met a large rock in the stream.

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><p>"...Maybe we should go after him," Anaru finally said, standing. The silence in the nearly vacant room was unsettling, even for the children, and something was off. It was rare when the Super Peace Busters went off and did their own thing - the only time was for hide and seek, something Anaru was assuming this was going to turn into. It was one of Menma's specialties, turning a bad into a good, trying to mediate fights and make a good situation out of a bad one.<p>

"I'll go with you," Tsuruko finally murmured.

"Quit being babies," Yukiatsu said, making the girls pause. "Stay here. Nothing's happened. They'll come back when they're ready," he said, climbing up to the loft to play on Poppo's video game. They hesitated, glancing at each other, before sitting back down like the boy had suggested.

* * *

><p>"Menma?" Poppo's voice rang out, following the trail down the hill. "Menma? You can come out now! Uncle! I give up!" He called, beginning to jog down the steep slope of the hill. His foot caught on the dusty gravel, and he fell, his face colliding with the rough earth with a grunt. When he coughed away the dust that he had unsettled and sat up, he realized the sudden fall had caused a nosebleed. He'd always been prone to them, and now was no exception. Holding a hand under his dripping nose, he stood.<p>

A pale yellow caught his attention. He had began to continue walking, heading towards the small bridge that covered part of the stream that ran by their secret base. He stopped, his bloodied hand falling from his face, eyes glued onto the single sandal that was on the embankment.

"Menma...?"

The clear water was beginning to turn red, blood swirling and mixing with the cool water, and as he followed the tendrils of blood to the body of his friend, he began to tremble.

Something wasn't right. It was like coming in too late when his parents had fought, and even after their reassurances he knew something had gone wrong, even if he wasn't sure what. Poppo could tell by her deathly silence, stillness, everything that wasn't Menma. Menma would be laughing, would be emotional, would be jumping around. She would be anything but this.

Not this.

The tears that had welled up into his eyes blurred Poppo's vision, and with a fear that he'd never felt before, he ran back up the steep hill to the secret place.

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><p>"<em>Help<em>!"

The sound of rushed footsteps and Poppo's frightened, despaired voice caused both Anaru and Yukiatsu to look up from their Gameboys, and suddenly he was in the secret base, blathering and blubbering and covered in blood and tears and dirt.

"Poppo, what happened?" Anaru demanded.

"We need to go get my mom! We - Menma - _she's not okay_ -" He was still blubbering, his tears mingling with the blood from his nose and meeting on his shirt and on the floor of the secret base. "Go get help!" He screamed.

Without another word the three took off down the winding path to get one of their parents, and Poppo collapsed onto the floor, shoulders wracking from his sobs. Even with his eyes screwed shut and his bloodied hands covering them, he was unable to rid the image of his childhood friend in the stream, her hair dyed with blood, motionless.

"Jinta, this is all your fault!" He wailed.

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><p>Jinta believed that he had suffered the most pain of all, having not been able to say goodbye to her the next day. He believed that he was the one who had suffered the most, having been the cause, having been the catalyst that had set everything in motion.<p>

If only he knew.


End file.
